Do Life Coaches Help?

When things aren’t working right and you start getting depressed or anxious you seek ways to turn things around and when everything you have tried doesn’t work you try something different. Some people believe that Life Coaches or Self Help Coaches have something that the books and TV shows don’t and they may be right. It might just take someone pushing you to do and be your best for you to make that leap of faith and get over the hump.

The Importance of a Coach

If you want a better life but you do not know how to make it happen, you can find someone who has experience on this, and use their expertise to be able to make a difference in your life. This is what a life coach does; he or she uses his professional training to be able to mould and turn a person’s life into something better.

There are different kinds of life coaching methods that you can choose to undertake, depending on your specific need:

You can hire a business coach who is someone who can guide you into turning your business into something that is highly profitable. This kind of mentoring will be very helpful, especially to those who are only starting out and are looking to gain a stronger stance, on their own.

You can have career coaching if you have noticed that your career life is not going in the direction that you’ve wanted. Maybe you are jumping from one job to another and not really finding the satisfaction you are looking for. Maybe you have been in a job too long, and you know you are not happy. If you are having problems finding happiness in your career, you can ask a coach to make things better for you.

You can think of hiring a life coach if you are having troubles with your personal life. Are you having problems with the relationships you keep? Do you often find yourself in all kinds of conflict with the people you deal with? Have you been told that you have some attitude problems? If you are having personal problems and you think that getting professional help will make a big difference, you can hire a life coach.

You can also think of getting executive coaching if you are an individual who is seeking to achieve great heights in your corporate career. If you are seeking a leadership position or you are already in one and you want to become a truly effective leader, you can hire a coach who can effectively show you the ropes. Leadership is an important role and good leadership can do so much for the world. If you want to make a difference in the workplace and to the people you work with, you will not think twice about seeking help.

When you hire a coach, just like sports coaching, you will see improvement in yourself. When you recognize the need for professional help you will realize that you can still achieve more, if only you are given the right instruction and direction.

Positive Thinking

When it comes to depression the more you think about being depressed or what is making you depressed the worse it gets. You need to stop thinking about the negative things in your life and start thinking about the positives. I know you are probably saying there is nothing positive in your life at the moment but stop and think real hard. Family, friends, health, a home, food, a pet…there has to be something that is positive. You can see, hear, walk, talk…there is always something. You might not be exactly where you want to be at the moment, but thinking about what is good in your life can help tremendously!

You may be thinking that this is not possible; that just thoughts will not change anything for you. That’s where you would be incredibly wrong. It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in things like energy for it to work. The fact is that the sort of thoughts you dwell on and the words you speak affect how you feel. For example, if you’ve got some sort of special occasion that you need to attend and you’re just positive that something will go horribly wrong, chances are that it will pour rain on that night and you’ll have a flat tire on the way. By the time you arrive at the special event, it will be at least thirty minutes late and you’ll resemble a drowned rat. The fact that you worried so much about it may very well have sealed your fate.

Consider that the negative energy that you send out to the Universe about anything in your life can go a long way to bringing just that to you. The great news is that it also works the other way. When you think good thoughts, you’re sending out positive energy for this same Universe to react to. In that way, you’re much more likely to bring good things into your life.

This is something that anyone feeling down and depressed about something specific or just life in general should keep in mind. The more you allow yourself to wallow in your bad mood, the more you’re likely to feel worse about everything. On the other hand, even if you have to force yourself, only allow some good thoughts to enter your head. When you find yourself thinking you’re fat and unattractive, focus on your good qualities. You may have gorgeous eyes or great hair or a beautiful smile. Concentrate on those traits and don’t allow yourself to think about the traits you have that you dislike. You can figure out how to change those later. First, you must start looking in a positive direction.

The less negative thoughts you allow to enter your head the better you’re going to start feeling about yourself and your life. Granted, this may not have the same immediate effect on you as, say, a Valium or Xanax would, but thinking good thoughts will have a much more permanent effect on your life and how you view it. Once you start driving away any bad thoughts and only letting in positive ones, you’re going to notice an improvement such as you never thought you would experience. Start thinking those good thoughts without delay and you’ll never look back.

Are You Really THAT Depressed?

The economy and where this country is headed has unfortunately dipped many people into different stages of depression; the sad part is that when most people describe what they are feeling to their Doctors the first thing they grab is their prescription pad.  Many times they don’t even look at any physical reasons why the patient might be feeling; tired, anxious, irritable, angry, upset, sad etc. There are other things you can do besides take prescription meds to fight the occassional bout of depression so let’s take a look at some of them.  Remember, many drugs have side effects and you don’t want to spend the rest of your life fighting them off because you had a minor setback.

By the way, they don’t care about your health; they just want your money. Doctors assume that if you are depressed, then there has to be a chemical imbalance going on in your body. The thing they won’t tell you is that the chemical imbalance is usually a result of the crap that you are eating on a daily basis. It’s actually been proven that mice that now eat the same foods you are eating become lethargic and depressed with low energy levels.

It has also been proven that those same mice can turn that around by eating healthy whole foods that aren’t loaded down with pesticide and herbicide chemicals. After a week or two, all those depressed and lethargic mice will be running around their cages without a worry in the world, full of energy. So, the first thing you are going to need to do is find a way of planting a small garden to supplement your diet with some fresh fruit and vegetables. In this way, you can chuck that bag of Cheetos and eat something that your body will actually digest rather than just feel full on.

The next thing you are going to need to do is leave out the soda and start drinking water. Granted, that stuff that comes out of your tap is probably not very healthy for you, either. After all, they load it down with chlorine and fluoride to the point that it’s just as chemically laden as any pharmaceutical pill on the market. That’s why you need a good filtration system for your water, even in bathing because your skin is soaking up that chemical cocktail in your local water system. By the way, bottled water is the same as tap water in most cases.

If you can clean up your diet and drink fresh healthy water, then you will see your energy levels rise. This will, in turn, allow you to get a moderate amount of exercise every week and that will put the chemicals in your body back into balance. Now, you aren’t depressed and, when you are feeling better about yourself and your life, you are able to do the things you need in order to change things for the better. No self-help books are needed for this and you can stop going to your shrink every week, too, which will save you money and make you even happier.

How Hearing The Right Words Can Change Your Life!

Have you ever been talking to someone, or listening to a radio show or watching a TV program and someone says something that just hits home, makes so much sense you wonder why you had never heard of it before or even thought of it yourself? It happens, in the blink of an eye one sentence or phrase and boom you know exactly what you are suppose to do or be doing or where you should be in life and how to get there. It’s amazing how it usually happens right when you need it most. Sometimes reminding yourself of these words is all you need to give yourself a boost.

The words you’ll use to boost your self-confidence aren’t the words spoken to you by others. These are words that you will write and speak to yourself. They’re called affirmations and can be some of the most effective means in raising the self-confidence of someone. Affirmations are easy to create and even simpler to put to use.

To begin with, target the areas of yourself and your life that you’re not quite happy with or you feel needs some improving.  For instance, if you’re not pleased with something about your appearance, focus on something that you ARE happy with. Maybe you feel that you need to lose a bit of weight but you have a very pretty or handsome face. Focus on that beautiful smile. Then, every morning when you get up and before you go to bed every night, look at yourself in the mirror and say something along the lines of “I have a very beautiful smile and it is this smile that people will see when they look at me. My beautiful smile will draw the people I want into my life.” Of course, you’ll want to make it more personal, but you get the idea.

These affirmations are necessary in helping you to remember that there ARE some very attractive qualities about you and that those are the ones that you need to focus on bringing out to the forefront. When you’re positive about something and can use that positivity, you’ll find that people will WANT to be around you because you produce such great energy. In other words, draw attention away from the fact that you may be packing a few extra pounds, for example, by showing off that great smile and your warm personality. People flock to that sort of thing.

Haven’t you ever noticed those great looking guys that are partnered with women that are less than a 5 on The Scale? Those women may not be physically beautiful but they’ve found a way to bring their inner beauty to the outside. You can do that as well. All you have to do is a little mind work. Write down affirmations that apply to what you’re trying to accomplish. These can be recited as often as you wish or feel that you need them. The more positive energy that you put out the more that will come back to you. Soon, you’ll only be aware of that gorgeous smile and that extra weight will be a secondary concern that you can take care of when you have a chance. This can work the same way with whatever you want to change about yourself.

Self Realization In This Crazy World

Everyone knows that if you want something bad enough and put your mind to it you will get it done. We have seen it time and time again and have even done it ourselves several times. But when you have doubt it takes away from what you are wanting to accomplish. Knowing how to start, the steps you need to take to realize your goals is the first step in making your dreams come true!

Now, there are some people out there that will tell you that positive visualization and thinking will give you what you need to realize that you are a decent person and the sky is the limit. That works for a lot of people out there, the ones that have the time to sit comfortably in a dimly lit room with incense and candles meditating on the things they would like to have happen or change in their lives. So what about the rest of the population that have no dimly lit room, no incense, no candles, and no time to meditate?

The best thing you can do to find self-realization is to act positively to as many people as you possibly can during your daily routine. Yes, there are going to be those people out there that will test your limits and instead of yelling, screaming, cursing, or bashing them in the head with a stick, you will need to think on the positive side. How do you do that with those people? Simple; think of how great it is that you are not one of those people and no one wants to smack you on a regular basis.

If you can manage to make it through at least one week of thinking and acting positively towards the people around you, even the ones you would prefer not to, then there is a very good chance that the positive thinking will accumulate into the self-realization that you are actually a good person. When you start believing that you are a good person, then you will start to see good things happen to you in your life. After that, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump over to the fact that you can do anything you put your mind to.

If you feel like you are going to be stressed out from being nice to all these people on a daily basis, then you need to find a hobby that you can release that stress with. This should be something a bit aggressive as far as your energy goes. Putting together model ships in a bottle will only aggravate you and cause you frustration at this point. Look more towards the shooting range, boxing, martial arts, or aspects that will give you a physical exhaustion point that will make you too tired to deal with other people’s attitudes. Then, you will be as happy as you have ever been and will flourish in your life.

5 Steps To Building Confidence

You know it, we all know it, the more confident a person is the better they do in life, the farther they get and the more popular they are. So how do we become one of these chosen few? How do we, the normal mainstream people get to where they are and to be able to become the best people we can be in life, do what we were put on this earth to do? These 5 steps are going to help you get to where you want to be, it’s work but worth it in the end!

Emphasize your strengths and downplay your weaknesses:   Self-confidence begins inside you so you must focus on everything that makes you a great person. Leave the past completely in the past and focus on the future. Make a list of 10 things you find positive about yourself. Then give yourself the credit you deserve for these traits.

Always remember past successes: Now, write down all of the successes that you’ve enjoyed in life. Remember how each one made you feel. These will amp up your confidence so that you can look to future successes waiting for you.

Conquer your shyness and take a gamble: You can choose to let your life pass you by or you could choose to get out and live. Everyone needs challenges in life. These present a way to feel good about yourself each time you beat a challenge. When you take a gamble on something, you understand that you can be successful in anything you try. Even when you feel you’ve failed, you’ll come away with a lesson, and that makes you a winner.

Build self-control: Refuse to listen to any little voice telling you that you’re going to fall on your face. That little voice is wrong and you need the self-control to put it where it deserves to be. No one’s perfect and you don’t need to be, either. Even if you make a mistake, as long as you’ve learned something from it, you still experienced a kind of success. Mistakes are for learning. So as long as you take away some knowledge from your mistakes, you’ll start gaining more self-confidence.

Visualize your successes: You can attain success in things much easier when you’re able to visualize it beforehand. See yourself in the situation you’re going to be facing. Watch as you make the right decisions, take the best actions and bring about the successful ending that you desire.  Even those highly confident people that you run into from time to time use this type of visualization to bring the things they want into their lives. When you can SEE yourself bringing about what you want most in your life, you can make it happen. The more successes that you bring to yourself the more your confidence will build.

Take some time to practice these tips daily and you’ll begin noticing the level of your self-confidence increasing a bit more each time. Once you’ve attained this much needed confidence, you’ll see the change in the way others view you. It will become quite obvious that they see you as a self-confident person no matter which room you walk into.

Motivating Yourself To Succeed

In order for you to succeed you need to motivate yourself and not give up! One little set back and you could be starting all over, but if you push yourself to not let the little things bring you down you or keep you from moving forward and getting what you want in life.  If one set back brings you crashing down to where you just can’t get back up again then you have a lot of work to do but the good news is YOU CAN DO IT!

What is Motivation?

Many believe that motivation often comes from somewhere else. It could be a friend or a family member, pushing you to do more. It could be mentors or superiors, helping you push forward into greatness. It could also be an unfortunate situation, that is strongly inspiring you to be more and do more.

These motivational sources are effective but they can be temporary. It is quite easy for one to lose grip of things, so you need to establish something strong and permanent. You need to learn how to do away with the external factors, and achieve the desired level of motivation on your own accord.

Enemies of Self-Motivation

If you often find yourself struggling with motivation, then something must be wrong. Maybe you have fears that are controlling you and causing you to move back. Maybe you are becoming a strong critic of yourself and you have already succeeded in discouraging your own self. Maybe you are just lacking true belief in yourself. You lack confidence and you are quick to back out on opportunities that you find threatening. Maybe you have failed before and you are afraid to make another mistake. If any of these issues are familiar to you, you have to start getting yourself motivated.

Useful Self Motivation Techniques

Set your goals straight. What is it that you want to achieve? Always, it is important that you know what you want, so that you can go for it. Always follow one direction of movement — and that is moving towards your goal. If you lose your way, just pick yourself up again, and move on.

Find inspiration. These may be people and events from which you can gain good perspective from. It is nice if you are able to surround yourself with these kinds of personalities because they are positive influences. They will help you become the person that you ought to become.

Learn to recognize rewards and blessings. Instead of focussing on the things that bring you down, why not look at the bright side of things and focus on what you have done well and have achieved. It is discomforting to have to look at mistakes, failures and errors, so why should you focus on that?

Visualize success. When you are able to see yourself victorious, it makes everything seem attainable. Do not limit yourself by saying “you cannot”. Instead, allow yourself to unravel your dreams, if only just with your mind.

Self Confidence Secrets

One of the biggest problems people with low self confidence have is facing new and unfamiliar situations, which is why many times they get stuck in a rut, in a comfortable and familiar surroundings, whether it is where they are living or where they are working, the thought of going forward is scary.  The thing these types of people need to know is that they HAVE to make that first step in order to build their confidence and get to where they want to be in life.  Here are some ideas to help you make that first step to total self confidence:

Get to know yourself: If you’re going to learn how to effectively deal with people, you must be aware of where your strengths and weaknesses are, socially speaking. When you know what your positive traits are you’re in a good position to use them when connecting with others. This lets you know what you can offer to someone else besides just the pleasure of your company. Discover your strengths and how to best use them.

Step outside of your comfort zone: It’s natural for people to be more comfortable staying where they’re most familiar. However, if you don’t push your own boundaries a bit, you’ll become stagnant. You must get out and try some new things and meet some new people. Develop new skills and join new groups for different activities. When you learn new things and discover that you can do them well, your confidence will benefit from a definite boost. You’ll also have a new forum where you can express yourself.

Follow through with your plans: Go through your Things to Do List and figure out which listings you can complete and cross off the fastest. Just starting to finish things that you’ve wanted to do will immediately help you think more highly of yourself. Don’t depend on others to help you and stop letting yourself get caught in the shadows of others. As you complete things on your own, your reputation improves and your self-confidence builds.

Learn to accept and appreciate the person that you are: Explore your own little idiosyncrasies and figure out how to handle them. It’s also helpful if you can look for ways that you can use your individuality. You may be very surprised at the way others react to your unique traits. For instance, something you may have deemed an irritation may actually be endearing to other people, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. When you can become confident with the person you are and the skills you have, you’ll be well on your way to having the self-esteem that you always wanted.  If you’ve got some traits and habits that you can’t change, then you need to use them to your advantage as long as you’re not encroaching on the territory of others.

The thing you need to remember above everything else is to love yourself. If you can do that, you can accept everything about yourself, which will go a long way to building your self-confidence.

Personal Awareness and Growth

When you have a conversation with friends and you listen to their stories of how they grew up, where they went to school, how their childhood was, does it mimick your own or is there a drastic difference? Do you wonder if the reason you are in life at the moment is directly related to how you grew up and that the reason they are further ahead in life is because of how they grew up? We aren’t talking about being born into money or affluance, but just normal everyday people living totally different lives.  In order to know where we are going in life we have to be aware of where we have been and how we got to where we are today.

Importance of Self-Awareness

Before you can effectively achieve some transformation in your life, it is important that you are self-aware. Self-awareness is the first step to change; you have to make yourself aware of your current situation, your problems, your strengths and your weaknesses. It is important that you know yourself completely so that you can make proper changes, where change is needed. It is important that you know yourself and you know what the problem is, so that you can address the situation better.

How to Develop Self-Awareness

It is not easy but it is not impossible to develop self-awareness if you do not have it yet. There is no shortcut that you can take, for sure, but there are strategies that you can take:

Learn to observe and monitor your life. Be more aware of what is happenings and study how these things are affecting your life.

Think more of yourself, for a change. Stop looking at other people; stop looking at them and comparing yourself because it will not do you any good. Instead of focussing on other people, look at your life and see what could be done to make things better. Think of yourself, focus on what you can do and not what others are abl to do for their lives.

Learn to embrace everything about yourself. May it be the bad or the good, you will need to learn to accept yourself for who you truly are, because when you are able to do that, then you will see that it will be easier for other people to embrace who you are, as well. It is not easy to accept one’s self completely. It is easier to pick on whatever you see about yourself but you have to learn to embrace everything so that you can move on, move forward and use it, for your own benefit.

Explore your strengths and weakness. People have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some people will have things that they are good at and you have to be aware of them; and some people will have things that they are insufficient in, and you have to face these, too, however difficult. It is important for you to face the truth because when you know yourself through and through, you can enhance your strengths so that you can use it and you can improve your weaknesses, so that you can seek to become so much better than who you are today.

Are You Living Up To Your Potential?

Have you ever had someone or maybe more than one person tell you that you aren’t living up to your potential? Maybe you have a talent or asked you why you were doing/working where you are when you obviously could be doing so much better! If you have heard this before or even told yourself these things maybe you are right! Many times we settle because we don’t think we are worthy of more. So are you growing into the person you want to be?

Signs of Growth

How do you know that your life is going in the right path? Sometimes in your jouryney, it is easy for you to lose track of things, but you need to find a way to recollect and see how well or how badly you are doing. Being aware of your pace of growth and development is important because awareness is key, when change is necessary.

Here are some of the significant growth signs you need to lookout for:

Successful relationships. What kind of relationships do you have? Are you able to keep good and genuine relationships or are you still trying to determine who your true friends are? Do you have trouble keeping relationships? Do you have problems dealing with people, altogether, both in the personal and professional level? The truth is that relationships are tough to handle. Some people will be experts on it but not everyone will know how to do things right.

Survival against your struggle. Struggles come, and no matter how hard you try avoid it, it will come to haunt you and bring you down. How you react to struggles will define the kind of person that you truly are. Are you someone who works with grace, even when under pressure or do you lose control?  If you want to be able to survive life’s challenges, you must have the will, the determination, and control over your thoughts and actions.

High self-esteem. Not a lot of people have true confidence in themselves. Many will need a little push from friends and family, and others will require constant reminders to believe in their own capabilities. If you have true confidence and belief on what you can do and achieve, then you have truly grown into the individual that you ought to become. You do not need to seek the approval of others. You do not care about what others say about you. You are whole and no one can bring you down.

Completeness. One is complete when all aspects of his or her life is satisfied. You know that one has achieved the true level of growth that they aspire, when they got to where they ought to be, without needing to compromise anything. You are complete when you are satisfied; and you are satisfied, when you are truly happy.

Physical growth, which is the more obvious kind of growth, is easy to measure. What is difficult to measure is personal growth, and it is the one that truly matters. Personal growth is important because it will help you achieve great things in life. More so, it is the one that defines you, for who you truly are.